Turn up the heat - health benefits of chili peppers

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Some people like spicy food. I am one of these people. I enjoy the sensation of my tongue burning, my gums feeling like they are on fire. It’s almost as though the meal is an event that I must endure and survive. In a very weird way it’s kind of fun to eat really spicy food and see if you can handle the burning sensation in your mouth.

Spicy food has been a large part of many cultures for generations. In India hot curries are a delicacy and in many ways the hotter the better. There are many Mexican dishes that would be far too spicy for the average person and in America they have chili fairs where men and women test their abilities to handle the heat.

Chili peppers may also have many benefits to you, your training and your health. They are not only a useful ingredient to add to certain dishes. They actually pose many benefits to health in a number of different ways.

One of the most useful aspects of chili peppers is the fact that they are thermogenic. Chili peppers raise body temperature significantly in most people. This will allow the body to become a fat burning furnace and the increased heat energy must come from somewhere. That somewhere is calories. Studies have shown that ingesting spicy food and chili peppers has been shown to burn or oxidize fat more efficiently. This means that due to chili peppers low calorie content and ability to increase fat burning they are an incredibly useful addition to a fat loss diet. A medium chili will provide:

They are also useful on a fat loss diet for adding a bit of excitement to an otherwise bland daily meal plan.

There are many other health benefits of the chili pepper rather than just aiding fat loss. The key ingredient capsaicin is what gives the chili pepper its spicy characteristics. Early laboratory studies on experimental mammals suggest that capsaicin has anti-bacterial, anti-carcinogenic, analgesic and anti-diabetic properties.

They are also rich in anti-oxidants that help fight free radicals like:

vitamin A

flvonoids like beta carotene

alpha carotene

lutein

zeaxanthin

cryptoxanthins

There are many ways in which you can cook with chilli peppers. A good recipe that I like to use on low calorie diets is: